In defense of Snapchat

Let’s set aside notions about the common subject matter on Snapchat, that CEO Evan Spiegel tends to make headlines for the wrong reasons or that some just think it’s “dumb.” Instead, let’s examine a powerful behavioral mechanism the company could exploit. This isn’t a defense of the above — I used it for two months and did not like it — but a look under the psychological hood.

At this point, “They turned down $3 billion! And they aren’t making money!” has become a (tired) refrain. This is still one of the most shocking rejections in Silicon Valley history, now a banner for the Impending Bubble, nuance be damned. But it is silly to take these soundbites at face value. Chalking it up to “greed” is the easy way out.

Very savvy minds are pulling strings behind the curtain, some all the way from billion-person-user-market China. It’s easy to evaluate an app’s potential by statistics — X by Y must equal Z — and forget psychology. Sure, a lot of people like Snapchat because messages disappear, but this means that Snapchat also has a powerful characteristic, one no other app or website comes close to:

Snapchat has said very little about how it plans to make money exactly, but picture this:

Cindy is just so excited about that hot guy Timmy. And now Timmy has sent her a snap! Oh! Tap to load…and…it’s a picture of…(no, not that, you sicko)…a mention that American Idol premiers tomorrow night! But only for a second. Just enough to remind Cindy. And now here’s the snap of Timmy on his way to the gym! Ye-yah!

OK, admittedly not everyone uses Snapchat as eagerly as Cindy. And of course that ad could manifest itself differently, at the border of the snap, the end or somewhere else in her experience. But you get the point. She couldn’t not look at the ad.

Jane Raymond, a professor of visual cognition at The University of Birmingham, consults with brands on how best to deliver messaging in an ad (even winning an award from Google). Her research has shown that we consume messaging and imagery in “gulps” — the brain sucks in the first bit, but then needs a moment to digest before taking in the next.

In that little instant of waiting for Timmy’s snap, Cindy’s undivided, absorbing brain is trained on her phone. Nuclear sirens could be going off but she has six seconds to see Timmy’s message and then it’s gone. Forever! That was your chance, Cindy. Everyone knows you can’t recover a snap!

Better pay attention. (Gulp.)

Now compare how easy it is to tune out advertisements on other sites. “Thirty seconds until your video loads.” Alt-Tab. “Promoted Tweet.” “Sponsored Post.” Ignore, ignore. Instagram ad, Pinterest ad. Scroll, scroll. Hey, did you get the new adblocker?

Simply put, and as the data ominously shows, we have gotten really good at ignoring advertisements, “the nervous system of the business world,” as The Atlantic put it almost a century ago. In fact, last year analytics outfit comScore found that about a third of online ads are displayed in such a way that viewers can’t even see them anyway. Oops.

Snapchat likes to play the privacy card because snaps are deleted (sorta) — or, as if we needed more buzzwords, “ephemeral communication” is the new black. But all that seems like hand waving so we forget about an almost-primal focus on content, whatever that content may be.

Of course the point here is far from bulletproof. Cindy could get annoyed with the ads or learn to ignore (so maybe she only gets an ad every fourth snap) but Snapchat should have her demographic pegged, so messages should be relevant to her life. And, of course, the quick, somewhat hurried impression on Cindy will raise plenty of questions from advertisers about impact and quality. No one said this would be easy.

But I can’t help but wonder if all the kids (and come on, plenty of people out of college) are really sending 400 million snaps every day, what kind of aggregate impression that adds up to. We should always take company-provided user numbers with a grain of salt and of course this doesn’t mean 400 million seen snaps (not everything gets opened). But we’re on a significant order of scale. Throw out any strawman CPI, assume user numbers will continue growing and we start to get a sense why Snapchat thought it could spurn Facebook.

“The temporary nature of the photo or video often creates a sense of excitement and an urgency of consumption that is rare in this era of information overload.”

That’s canned language, but if you’ve used the service, can you disagree?

There’s more here. Advertisers love to play — associate with — our emotions. That old adage about selling the sizzle not the steak is important. Snapchat makes users feel good. It’s a positive environment because snaps are zany or funny or lighthearted or sexual. What’s not to love? So brands ride those smiley coattails when they slip in their name.

Of course Snapchat could also push coupons and other goods, a legitimate avenue for income. Brands could send snaps directly to users, though that gets into spammy territory pretty fast. And of course you could pay to not have advertising at all, but there’s only a thin demographic that would reach for its wallet. So there are other ways to make money, outside of the psych-hooks they’ve sunk in users.

One last note — and the reason why I refuse to put Facebook in the Silicon Valley elite, and also why Facebook seems quick to reach for its checkbook: digital social habits change overnight. Especially with young people. Snapchat proved that. And someone else could (will) prove it on Snapchat. Usage numbers could plummet just as fast as they’ve skyrocketed. Not to mention, Snapchat still feels closer to a feature than a product; Apple, Google, Facebook or Twitter could open their own “ephemeral communication” channel tomorrow. The above argument is not a defense of staying power, only the potential revenue mechanics today.